Vanguard Rising: A Space Opera Adventure

by A. C. Hadfield

  Harlan swept the right side of the dark corridor and switched on the weapon’s light emitter to bathe the passage with stark, pale light. His visor adapted instantly, equalizing the contrast, overlaying his augmented data stream: temperature spread, air composition, and his body metrics, but not what he really needed: the full 3D scan map of the castle’s interior from the Wickham’s material-penetrating analyzer.

  They’d have to do it the old-fashioned way: sweep and clear, room by room.

  In the glare of the light, Bella swept the left side and then pointed her weapon forward, indicating another door into the castle’s interior.

  “All clear here,” Bella said, her voice taut and close in Harlan’s ear from his helmet’s audio system.

  He looked over to her but couldn’t see her face behind the mirrored visor. Although it was an optional setting, Harlan suspected she didn’t want to show her sadness for her crew. They’d only been here a few minutes and were already two down.

  “You sure you want to continue?” he asked, not wanting to bring her along unless she was absolutely focused.

  “I haven’t wanted anything else. Besides, Gianni’s here somewhere. I can’t leave now.”

  Harlan checked the roof again, paranoid about any potential abbots lying in wait. “Fine. We’re good on this side. Open the door and step to the side; I’ll cover.”

  Bella grunted the affirmative, stood to the left of the door, reached over, then pulled the latch and pushed it open. Light from the story below illuminated a set of stone steps. Harlan inched forward, with his rifle trained on the aperture.

  “All clear. I’ll go first,” he said. “Watch our six—we can’t trust that we won’t be attacked from behind. Who knows how many of these hacked abbots Luca’s got working for him.”

  “Don’t worry, Harlan. I’ve got your back.”

  They descended the stone steps, carefully but with pace. The steps turned into a spiral staircase, grand and wide enough for Harlan and Bella to descend side by side. Wooden handrails hinted at the splendor the castle had once boasted. Now they were worn and splintered, the old varnish long cracked and split.

  The staircase led to what appeared to be a reception area. Harlan stopped at the bottom step and swept his rifle in a wide arc covering the open-plan room. The corners gathered shadows, which the light from his rifle pushed back to reveal cobwebs, dust, and mold growing on the pillow-carved stone walls.

  An old threadbare rug sat in the middle of the room.

  Bella shined her flashlight onto it. “Footprints,” she said, indicating the disturbances in the dust. She followed the trail and tracked faint prints across the old wooden floorboards to a grand, arched wooden door to the east.

  Two more darkened archways led off to the west and south. Harlan swept his light across the floor. “No prints here. Guess we know where to go next.”

  “You lead. I’ll cover.”

  Harlan raised the rifle and stepped toward the studded wooden door, following the prints. Bella, beside him, walked backwards, sweeping her weapon and covering all angles. Harlan reached the door and placed his helmet against the surface. He could hear a low-level hum and whirring noise coming from the other side.

  “Wilbur, do you hear me?” Harlan asked.

  “Loud and clear. What’s going on?”

  “We’re down to some kind of reception area. I hear some noise, perhaps machinery, on the other side of a door. I really need the Wickham’s scanners up and running. I hate going into this blind.”

  “I’m trying my best here. The ship suffered considerable damage, and I’ve had to help Irena stabilize Greta.”

  “Is she stable now?” Bella asked.

  “She’s still breathing if that counts, but her wounds…” Wilbur choked on his words and took a deep breath.

  “Focus, Wilbur. You can do this. And we need you.”

  “Give me a few more minutes. I’ve got it narrowed down to a few potential relays. I’ll have to do some rewiring, but you’ll have your scanners soon.”

  “Maybe that soon can be sooner. We don’t have the luxury of time.”

  “Going as fast as I can.”

  Harlan checked his terminal countdown: twenty-eight minutes to go. They couldn’t afford to just wait around for Wilbur to fix the ship’s scanners. Sure, they’d have an advantage, but what good was an advantage when you had no time to benefit from it?

  He thought of Marius, of his training. A core theory was to take life how it was, not how one wanted it to be. Right now, he didn’t have the scanners. Right now, time was running down, and there was something going on just behind a few inches of wood and iron.

  “Bella, I’m going in. Get ready to open fire.”

  She nodded and crouched to a knee, pulled the rifle up, and wedged the butt into the crook of her shoulder. “Do it.”

  He reached out, grabbed the thick iron handle, and pushed the door open. At first it resisted, but with a shoulder barge, it gave in and swung on rusted hinges. He stopped on the threshold, taking in the room before him.

  It was a long banquet hall. The table was turned over on its side and pushed to the far right of the room, in front of a set of tall windows. But what grabbed his attention the most was a series of five clear cubicles, each about six feet square, running the length of the room on the left-hand side. From the ceiling, great thick cables dropped down and ran into black boxes attached to the rear of the structures. Lighting rigs were attached to the top surfaces, dousing the interior with white light. They were similar to the ones used as holding cells at the silicon runners’ office.

  The first two were empty apart from a basic steel bed and a toilet.

  The middle cell’s door was open, and Harlan saw two earthers hunched over some still form on the floor. The bed had been bent and twisted and thrown to the rear. In the final cubicle, furthest from Harlan and Bella’s position, a single man stood staring at the savage creatures, his back pressed against the wall, eyes wide, catatonic. He wore a blue-gray jumpsuit torn at the knees and covered in dark stains and rips. His brown hair stood up at all angles. Dirt and what looked like dried spittle covered his face and chin.

  Bella joined Harlan at the open door and stared at the scene before them. Her eyes scanned the first cubicle and then down the row until she reached the last one. She gasped, lowering her rifle. “It’s Gianni. He’s alive.” She made to run toward him.

  Harlan put his arm in front of her. “Wait. We don’t want to get the attention of the earthers when they’re eating.” Lumps of corpse meat and bones flew about the cubicle as the creatures filled their bellies with carrion. Harlan looked away, unable to stomach the sharp contrast of the viscera against the cell’s walls.

  Bella pushed Harlan’s arm away and stepped forward, raising her weapon. “I didn’t come here to watch those damn things feed on the dead while my brother is just inches away.”

  “At least take a moment to plan our attack.”

  “What do you suggest? You’ve got ten seconds to come up with something.”

  Harlan ran a mental inventory of his armaments. A grenade would be the best bet to save on ammo. He’d read reports from the Sol-Fed security force that the earthers’ genetic mutations required a considerable quantity of ammo to put down—especially if they were in a rage. Given how gaunt these things appeared, they’d not had a good feed for a while.

  “If you cover,” Harlan said, “I’ll use a concussion grenade. The confines of the cell will amplify the effect. That should be enough to put the earthers down—at least temporarily.”

  “Yeah, and also affect Gianni.”

  “He’ll just be unconscious.”

  “No, Harlan, look at him; he’s completely spaced out. Who knows what that sadistic bastard has done to him. If you want to stand here and strategize, go ahead, but I’m saving my brother.”

  Bella sprinted forward and called out to Gianni using the external speakers of her visor. The spray of bones and blood within the cell bef
ore Gianni’s ceased. The pair of earthers stood and turned to face the source of the sound.

  Their eyes were solid black, pupils completely dilated. Blood dripped from their chins, mouths, and hands. What remained of their clothes hung wetly against protruding ribs. The one closest to the door, completely bald and taller than its fair-headed partner, snarled and stepped out of the cell.

  Bella aimed her rifle and fired a three-shot burst.

  Two of the rounds slammed home into the creature’s right arm, spinning it around to slump against the door frame. Harlan raised his weapon to keep them at bay when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. “Bella, another one coming from your right.”

  The third earther roared and sprinted across the banquet hall with its arms outstretched. It moved too quickly for Harlan to get off a shot.

  Bella sidestepped the swipe from her attacker, but by doing so blocked Harlan’s aim.

  She fired once. The creature slammed a heavy fist into her chest, knocking her back. She fell to the floor, the back of her head bouncing off the floorboards. The creature leapt onto her chest. The other two, galvanized by their compatriot’s domination, leapt from the cell to surround Bella. She screamed and reached for a grenade on her belt.

  Harlan took a knee and drew in a breath. He aimed the rifle, letting the AR select the creature on top of Bella and send the data to the adjustment servos. With a pull of the trigger, he unloaded a full magazine, driving it back and away from Bella, where it slumped and bled out on the floor.

  One of the others quickly took up the position. Bella scrambled backwards and grabbed her rifle. Harlan swapped out a magazine and stepped forward, getting a better angle. But then stopped before firing when he noticed the smaller earther turn away from Bella and make its way toward Gianni’s cell. The creature slammed its clawed hands into the door.

  Gianni just stood there, eyes wide and seemingly unable to move as the creature continued to smash its way inside.

  Bella screamed and fired a long burst at it even as the larger of the two bore down on her.

  Harlan let rip with full-auto mode, driving the bald one back as chunks of meat flew from its limbs under his assault. It collapsed to its knees but continued to bare its teeth, blood and spittle flying from its mouth. Harlan withdrew the standard-issue Marine knife from the suit’s scabbard and prepared to finish his quarry when the lights in the room switched off, bathing the place in complete darkness.

  37

  Harlan prepared to order his peripheral to engage the night-vision upgrade, but then remembered he had removed it—and now had no way of activating it. Wilbur’s voice crackled through the comm while Harlan tried to get his bearings.

  “Scanners online. I’m currently running a full spatial scan of the castle. I’ve got you and Bella tagged: there are five other life signs in the room with you, confirm?”

  There was Gianni and three earthers, which made four. Who was the fifth?

  “I can’t confirm the fifth.”

  Harlan willed his vision to adapt to the darkness, but the thick clouds outside blocked any remaining light. All he could make out were the sounds of the earthers’ guttural barks. They were getting closer. Bella screamed and fired her rifle, the rounds thudding into the wall somewhere.

  “Watch where you’re shooting,” Harlan said.

  “One of the damn things is on me.”

  “I’m coming for you.”

  Before he had managed even a single step, a creature tackled him around the waist, sending him crashing to the floor, knocking his breath out of his lungs. A great pressure collapsed onto his chest. Two heavy strikes slammed into his helmet, whipping his head one way and then the other.

  Pain exploded in his skull. He twisted away from the blows and tried to buck the creature from him, but he was pinned. Bella screamed and yelled a string of obscenities at her attacker. Harlan tried to reach for the rifle to his right, but when he turned to look for it, in the dim darkness of the room he saw a pair of legs by him and a human form standing over his prone form. A glowing blue light from a swordlike weapon illuminated a woman’s face.

  “Leanne?”

  She raised the sword silently and brought it down in a sweeping arc. Harlan turned his face away, wincing as he anticipated the incoming pain. But the weight on his chest instantly eased. The earther slumped to the side. Harlan opened his eyes to see the creature’s head roll in the opposite direction. Its neck wound was already cauterized.

  Before he could say anything, Leanne stepped over him, dashed toward Bella, and brought the weapon down with another single slicing blow, cutting the second creature in half from one shoulder to the opposite hip.

  Bella scrambled back and grabbed her rifle. She aimed it at Leanne’s chest.

  “No, don’t shoot,” Harlan yelled. “She’s on our side.” He said it with more hope than conviction, but it was enough to buy a moment of time. Bella and Leanne together took down the last remaining earther, who was still trying to enter Gianni’s cell. The creature’s body slumped to the ground in the barrage of rifle fire and the killing blow from Leanne’s sword.

  Leanne turned towards Harlan and Bella. She deactivated her sword and offered her hand to Bella, who took it and stood. Harlan got to his own feet and checked the updated data stream from Wilbur on his terminal: no life signs other than the current four.

  His vision had now adapted to the gloom. A break in the clouds allowed a crack of silver moonlight to shine through.

  “Leanne,” he began, “what the hell’s happening here? Did you… you know, back at the runners’ office?”

  “No. I was taken against my wishes. I tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen. Vanguard’s goons took me and handed me over to Luca for his… experiments.” Leanne turned to face the cubicles. “The first one was mine. If it wasn’t for the earthers overrunning parts of the castle and breaking into my cell, I’d be like that poor bastard in there.”

  “That’s my brother,” Bella said, moving toward the cell, a scowl on her face.

  “Not anymore.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I mean, Luca’s a sick bastard. He’s been experimenting with something developed within Project Inception—using something they discovered on one of their mining sites. For your brother, it didn’t go quite so well. He hasn’t said a thing for days. He just stands there and stares. It’s clear no one’s home.”

  Harlan stepped toward his ex-wife. “What did he do to you?”

  They held a gaze for a moment. Leanne broke it and looked away. “Nothing important. I escaped before he could do anything worse. Besides, he’s been preoccupied with Fizon these last couple of days.”

  “He’s here, then?”

  “Yeah. In the basement.”

  Bella broke up the conversation. “I’m getting Gianni out of here. I’ll come back and join you, but I’m not leaving him here.”

  Harlan checked his terminal. They had just over twenty-one minutes. “You’ll have to be quick; we’re losing time.”

  Bella nodded. She then blasted the lock mechanism on the door with a short burst of her rifle. Gianni didn’t even flinch. He stayed up against the wall of his cell and continued to stare at the mess in the next cubicle. Bella entered and wrapped her arms around him. She had switched off her comm, and Harlan couldn’t hear what she was saying. For the briefest of moments, Gianni looked at Bella, and a flash of recognition passed over his gaze, but then his eyes defocused again into that catatonic state. With some gentle tugging, Bella managed to get Gianni to move. He shuffled his feet forward as she led him out. He followed like some docile lamb.

  “Wilbur,” Bella said, her voice now audible over the comm channel, “any other signs of movement from our position to the Wickham?”

  “No, you’re all clear. I’m detecting a large energy buildup and two life-forms in the basement. We’ve got a grouping of earthers at the base of the castle, but they’re no threat to us here. You’ve got a clea
r route.”

  Harlan’s terminal chirped with the receipt of the three-dimensional map generated from the Wickham’s scanning equipment. Bella unclipped the explosives she had armed herself with and handed them to Harlan. “Take these; you’ll probably need them if I don’t get back in time.” She turned her attention to Leanne. “Thanks for what you did back there. I appreciate it.”

  The two women shared a brief nod.

  “Shout if you need any help,” Harlan said.

  “Will do. See you shortly.”

  With that, Bella, half-leading Gianni, left the room.

  Harlan turned to Leanne. “What is that weapon you used?”

  “Vanguard tech. More new developments out of Inception.”

  “Huh. That’ll have to be shut down when we get back.”

  “If we get back.”

  “We will, but we’re not going to have anything worth getting back to if we don’t hurry up.” Harlan plotted a route toward the basement. It wasn’t far, and they’d only need to traverse a single corridor that would take them to the east wing of the castle. From there, a set of spiral staircases took them down to the lowest level.

  “Are you in a fit state? You took quite a hit back there.”

  Harlan laughed bitterly. “You don’t know the half of it. My medical privileges are going to require extensive upgrades if we get out of this alive.” His chest hurt, and pain flared in his neck, but he had fought through worse. He’d have time to heal later. He clipped Bella’s explosives to the webbing on his suit and grabbed his rifle, making sure it was fully operational.

  “How much do you know about Luca’s hack?” Harlan asked.

  “Nothing more than you. I’ve been a prisoner most of this time, but I do know one thing that might be of use: I traced Luca’s broadcast to the QCA to a satellite dish on the west side of the castle. I was heading there myself when I saw you guys crash-land. If you take that out, that’ll buy us time. It’ll cut Fizon’s connection. They’ll have alternative means, but that’ll take them time to set up.”